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Holland Road

Unusually perhaps and confusingly for sure there are three different Holland Roads within the present Plymouth boundaries. One in Mannamead, one in Plymstock and a third (the most recent) in Plympton. In each case there are no obvious clues as to the choice of name. Curiously enough, in much the same way, no-one is entirely sure about why Holland – as in the country also known as the Netherlands – is so-called. The most popular theories there incidentally are either that it comes from old Dutch “Holtland” – as in forest land (it was once well wooded) – or “hollow land”. Although, strangely enough, Great Holland, in Essex, is said to derive from “land on or by a “Hoh” or spur of a hill”.

Closer to home the Holland Inn, at Hatt, near Saltash, is said to derive from a local politician, Lord Holland, who was prominent in the mid-nineteenth century. Holland Park in London meanwhile is the district named after Holland House, home of the Earls of Holland, a title first conferred upon Sir Henry Rich, in Lincolnshire in 1624.